I've been working at the carpet. It isn't going well. Even with the heat gun, it is an outrageous process. I am flabbergasted by this crap. I simply cannot believe that the carpet UNDER THE REAR SEAT needed to be glued down like it was. Good lord.

After cutting out my floor, I decided to get my rear suspension set up, so that, when building my tunnel, I wouldn't have any issues with the driveshaft in the rear.

So, last week, I pulled out my extra rear housing, from an 87 runner, and cleaned it. Then, I gutted it, pulling the axles, diff, brakelines, an diff studs.

On Saturday, I forgot my camera, but I drove to my buddy kevin's house, and plasma'd off the bracketry. Plasma is awesome. Burned everything off, and then had just a couple passes with a grinder to clean up. Super fun.

When that was done, it looked like this:

In Saturday's mail, my shaving kit arrived. Awesome!

The steel is all 3/8" plate.

So, I got to work.

Inked in:

Cut.

The cutting sucked. I cut too much in an error of judgement, as I thought the plate would sit differently. Not a huge deal, but just added extra welding, which translated to extra time while I let the housing cool between welds. One of those, kick-yourself-in-the-pants moments.

Set in place, ready to weld:

Finished product. I'm calling it my baby's bottom, as it is smooth like one.

My axle housing base is now smooth, and armored to 3/8". It also should give me about an inch of clearance. I will be measuring to see if its actually that much.

Currently its sitting in the garage with some old engine oil in it, to see if it leaks. Hopefully not.

After finishing the rear axle up, I cleanup up a bit, did a lot of organizing, and turned the truck around. Also, due to the extreme generosity of a friend, I picked up a 14" abrasive chop saw for a six pack of beer.

So, I took off my rear axle, and cleaned my frame:

I also began fabbing my frame side bracketry.

Here are my frame plates:

And the back "plates" (rectangular tubes) that will be where the tabs weld to, along with the plates and some square tubular gussets: